New Books in Military History

Samuel Ramani, "Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution" (Hurst, 2023)

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. For Vladimir Putin, this was a le...

Christopher Harrison, "Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators Under the Guise of War" (Lexington Books, 2023)

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Harrison's book Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators Under the Guise of War (Lexington Books, 2023) examines how s...

Paratroopers in the Pacific: A Conversation with James Fenelon

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of Season 3, Annika sits down with James Fenelon, a veteran-turned-historian, who served in the Army for over a decade and is a ...

Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan, "Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War" (Oxford UP, 2023)

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan about their new book Understanding Ethiopia's Tigray War (Oxford UP, 2023) The ongoing war and con...

Van Nguyen-Marshall, "Between War and the State: Civil Society in South Vietnam, 1954-1975" (Southeast Asia Program, 2023)

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The history of South Vietnam (1954-1975) is in the midst of a major revision. Historians such as Van Nguyen-Marshall are rejecting old clichés of cor...

Mark Edele, "Russia's War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story" (Melbourne University, 2023)

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"That Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically so radically since 1991 is partially due to their position vis-à-vis the imploded empire they emer...

Michael Broers, "Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire, 1811-1821" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

12 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1811, Napoleon stood at his zenith. He had defeated all his continental rivals, come to an entente with Russia, and his blockade of Britain seemed,...

Jacob Mikanowski, "Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" (Pantheon Books, 2023)

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in t...

Phillip Reid, "A Boston Schooner in the Royal Navy, 1768-1772: Commerce and Conflict in Maritime British America" (Boydell Press, 2023)

10 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The small Boston-built schooner Sultana served as a customs-enforcement interceptor on the North American eastern seaboard in the period leading up to...

Michael Roper, "Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History" (Manchester UP, 2023)

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michael Roper documents the lives and historical pursuits of the...

Daniel Foliard, "The Violence of Colonial Photography" (Manchester UP, 2022)

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The late nineteenth century witnessed a rapid increase in colonial conflicts throughout the French and British empires. It was also the period in whic...

Christopher Miller, "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his late...

Olivier Burtin, "A Nation of Veterans: War, Citizenship, and the Welfare State in Modern America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

03 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In examining how the veterans' movement inscribed martial citizenship onto American law, politics, and culture, A Nation of Veterans: War, Citizensh...

Jill L. Newmark, "Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons" (Southern Illinois UP, 2023)

03 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Of some twelve thousand Union Civil War surgeons, only fourteen were Black men. This book is the first-ever comprehensive exploration of their lives a...

James B. Conroy, "The Devils Will Get No Rest: FDR, Churchill, and the Plan That Won the War" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Devils Will Get No Rest: FDR, Churchill, and the Plan That Won the War (Simon and Schuster, 2023) is a character-driven account of the Casablanca...

Alexander Hill, "The War on the Eastern Front: The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History" (Pen & Sword Military, 2021)

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The War on the Eastern Front: The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History (Pen & Sword Military, 2021), Professor Alexander Hill has co...

Diya Gupta, "India in the Second World War: An Emotional History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1940s India, revolutionary and nationalistic feeling surged against colonial subjecthood and imperial war. Two-and-a-half million men from undivide...

Stipe Odak et al., "Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past" (Routledge, 2023)

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past (Routledge, 2023), Kuznar, Lucic and Odak provide a wide-ranging collection of essays about th...

Phil Klay, "Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War" (Penguin, 2022)

30 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself a part of the community of veterans who have no cho...

Ian Buruma on "Year Zero: A History of 1945"

29 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Buruma is the author, co-author and editor of over a dozen books. He has been an editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review and The New York Rev...

Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Black's book A History of Artillery (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough s...

J. Michael Rifenburg, "Drilled to Write: Becoming a Cadet Writer at a Senior Military College" (Utah State UP, 2022)

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drilled to Write: Becoming a Cadet Writer at a Senior Military College (Utah State UP, 2022) offers a rich account of US Army cadets navigating the u...

Michael J. Seth, "Korea at War: Conflicts That Shaped the World" (Tuttle Publishing, 2023)

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Korean War “ended” exactly fifty years ago at Panmunjom. On July 27, 1953, United States and United Nations commanders on one side, and the No...

Andrew Quilty, "August in Kabul: America's Last Days in Afghanistan" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Told through the eyes of witnesses to the fall of Kabul, Walkley award-winning journalist Andrew Quilty's debut publication offers a remarkable recor...

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the 1930s, the West was in peril. A cultural and economic backwater, the Great Depression had all-but wiped out the extractive industri...

Sheila Miyoshi Jager, "The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia" (Harvard UP, 2023)

23 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing Korea at the center of a transformed world order wroug...

Nataša Jagdhuhn, "Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nataša Jagdhuhn's Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia (Palgr...

Stefan Rinke, "Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan" (Oxford UP, 2023)

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Five hundred years ago, a flotilla landed on the coast of Yucatán under the command of the Spanish conquistador Hérnan Cortés. While the official g...

Mani Sharpe, "Late-Colonial French Cinema: Filming the Algerian War of Independence" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Late-Colonial French Cinema: Filming the Algerian War of Independence, Mani Sharpe peploys the term “late-colonial” to describe (mostly) Frenc...

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, "Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2018)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence tha...

Sofya Aptekar, "Green Card Soldier: Between Model Immigrant and Security Threat" (MIT Press, 2023)

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

While the popular image of the US military is one of citizen soldiers protecting their country, the reality is that nearly 5 percent of all first-time...

Jade McGlynn, "Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why aren't ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin's own historical propaganda narratives, Russia's invasio...

Leslie Turnberg, "Mandate: The Palestine Crucible, 1919-1939" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2021)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The twenty years between the World Wars saw remarkable changes in the Middle East. In Palestine, Britain struggled to maintain its Mandatory Authority...

Alfred J. Rieber, "Stalin As Warlord" (Yale UP, 2022)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Second World War was arguably the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. In Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022), eminen...

Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films...

Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war--and why ...

Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)

09 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in...

Justin Jordan, "And Then I Cried: Stories of a Mortuary NCO" (Tactical 16, 2012)

08 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In And Then I Cried: Stories of a Mortuary NCO (Tactical 16, 2012), Justin Jordan details life as an Air Force Mortuary Non Commissioned Officer. I...

Rotem Kowner, "Tsushima" (Oxford UP, 2022)

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Rotem Kowner about Tsushima (Oxford UP, 2022), which is part of the great battle series in Oxford University press. The Battle of...

Andrew Harding, "A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, Death and Defiance in Ukraine" (Ithaka, 2023)

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From 2-13 March 2022 - only a week into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine - Russian forces tried and failed to take and hold Voznesensk, a small...

Danny Orbach, "Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War" (Pegasus Books, 2022)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Danny Orbach about his book Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War (Pegasus Books, 2022). Shrouded in gover...

Meryl Ain, "Shadows We Carry" (Sparkspress, 2023)

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Meryl Ain's Shadows We Carry (Sparkspress, 2023) is a follow-up to the author’s 2020 novel, The Takeaway Men, focuses on fraternal twins Bronka ...

Peter Stansky, "The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War" (Stanford UP, 2023)

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Few English writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His literary output at on...

Michael O'Hanlon, "Military History for the Modern Strategist: America's Major Wars Since 1861" (Brookings, 2023)

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The recent conclusion to the war in Afghanistan — America’s longest and one of its most frustrating — serves as a vivid reminder of the unpredic...

Samuel Helfont, "Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order" (Oxford UP, 2023)

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The move away from post-Cold War unipolarity and the rise of revisionist states like Russia and China pose a rapidly escalating and confounding threat...

Kaya Sahin, "Peerless Among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman" (Oxford UP, 2023)

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Süleyman, who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566, was a globally recognized figure during his lifetime. In Peerless Among Princes: The ...

David E. Kelly, "First Fights in Fallujah: Marines During Operation Vigilant Resolve, in Iraq, April 2004" (Casemate, 2023)

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In March 2004, the unprovoked ambush killing and desecration of the bodies of American civilian security contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, caused the Nat...

Alan Bollard, "Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars" (Oxford UP, 2020)

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wartime is not just about military success.  Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars (Oxford University ...

Craig Nelson, "V Is For Victory: Franklin Roosevelt's American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II" (Scribner, 2023)

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As Nazi Germany began to conquer Europe, America’s military was unprepared, too small, and poorly supplied. The Nazis were supported by robust Germa...

Thomas W. Lippman, "Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United Stat...

Giulia Pecorella, "The United States of America and the Crime of Aggression" (Routledge, 2021)

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Giulia Pecorella's The United States of America and the Crime of Aggression (Routledge, 2021) traces the position of the United States of America o...

M. Todd Bennett, "Neither Confirm Nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency" (Columbia UP, 2022)

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When the Soviet K-129 submarine sank in the Pacific Ocean in 1968, the CIA saw a possible treasure trove of intelligence information on Soviet militar...

Liisa Kovala, "Surviving Stutthof: My Father's Ordeal in a Nazi Concentration Camp" (Latitude 46, 2017)

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As the first Russian bombs drop on Oulu, Finland in early 1940 during the Winter War, Aarne Kovala is a young boy with a great love of the sea. While ...

David Stahel, "Hitler's Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

18 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz G...

Nicole Wegner, "Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

18 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Martialling Peace: How the Peacekeeper Myth Legitimises Warfare (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) by Dr. Nicole Wegner is not a book about peacekeep...

Margot Tudor, "Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Blue Helmet Bureaucrats: United Nations Peacekeeping and the Reinvention of Colonialism, 1945–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Margot...

Lin Poyer, "War at the Margins: Indigenous Experiences in World War II" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

17 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Eighty years on, Lin Poyer's book War at the Margins: Indigenous Experiences in World War II (U Hawaii Press, 2022) offers a global and comparative ...

Tanvi Srivastava, trans., "The War Diary of Asha-san: From Tokyo to Netaji's Indian National Army" (Harper Collins, 2022)

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On a trip many years ago to New Delhi, I was struck by an official memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose, the wartime leader of the Indian National Army, th...

Alison S. Fell, "Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women, c.1850-1945" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alison S. Fell's book Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women, c.1850-1945 (Cambridge UP, 2023) examines women warriors as vehicles of ...

Nicholas W. S. Smith, "Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the countries bordering the Red Sea are riven with instability. Why are the region's contemporary problems so persistent and interlinked? Throu...

R. T. Howard, "Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler" (Oxford UP, 2023)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Exactly a century ago, intelligence agencies across Europe first became aware of a fanatical German nationalist whose political party was rapidly gath...

Peter H. Wilson, "Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500" (Harvard UP, 2023)

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the...

New Histories of Violence in and around the Second World War

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why does state-led and intercommunal violence occur? How do past episodes of mass violence reverberate in the present? How do victims and perpetrators...

Drone: Remote Control Warfare

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drone Warfare is the first comprehensive analysis of one of the fastest growing--and most secretive--fronts in global conflict: the rise of robot war...

Lawrence Freedman, "Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Command in war is about forging effective strategies and implementing them, making sure that orders are appropriate, well-communicated, and then obeye...

Tobias Ide, "Catastrophes, Confrontations, and Constraints: How Disasters Shape the Dynamics of Armed Conflicts" (MIT Press, 2023)

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Armed conflict and natural disasters have plagued the twenty-first century. Not since the end of World War II has the number of armed conflicts been h...

Randy Grigsby, "A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019)

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Euro...

Jonathan Abel, "Guibert's General Essay on Tactics" (Brill, 2021)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"'The God of War' is near to revealing himself, because we have heard his prophet." So wrote Jean Colin, naming Napoleon the God of War and Jacques-An...

Kidada E. Williams, "I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in...

Arthur Snell, "How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan (1997-2021)" (Canbury Press, 2022)

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Arthur Snell's book How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan (1997-2021) (Canbury Press, 2022) critically as...

Scott McGaugh, "Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: The Glider Pilots of World War II" (Osprey, 2023)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This book distills war down to individual young men climbing into defenseless gliders made of plywood, ready to trust the towing aircraft that would p...

Strategy and Saratoga: A Conversation with Kevin Weddle

27 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At the Battle of Saratoga, the tide of the Revolutionary War turned in favor of unlikely victors: the American patriots.  What were the major strateg...

Suzanne Sutherland, "The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe" (Cornell UP, 2022)

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe (Cornell UP, 2022), Suzanne Sutherland explores the role ...

Robert Kershaw, "Dünkirchen 1940: The German View of Dunkirk" (Osprey, 2022)

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The surprise success of the German offensive in the West that commenced on May 10, 1940 caught the Allies completely off-guard, and France would soon ...

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, "A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War" (Knopf, 2023)

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The history of reportage has often depended on outsiders--Ryszard Kapuściński witnessing the fall of the shah in Iran, Frances FitzGerald observing ...

Carlo Parisi, "Dagger Fencing: The Italian School" (Fallen Rook, 2016)

20 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, fighting with dagger versus dagger, or with knife versus knife, is not a common scenario that people might expect to face. However, it was more...

Simon Geissbühler, ed., "Romania and the Holocaust: Events, Contexts, Aftermath" (Ibidem Press, 2016)

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From summer 1941 onwards, Romania actively pursued at its own initiative the mass killing of Jews in the territories it controlled. 1941 saw 13,000 Je...

Thom Shanker and Andrew Hoehn, "Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats" (Hachette Books, 2023)

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Again and again, American taxpayers are asked to open their wallets and pay for a national security machine that costs $1 trillion operate. Yet time...

The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Conversation with Allen C. Guelzo

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why should we study Robert E. Lee? Why did he make the fateful decision to betray his country? How should we judge Robert E. Lee? Allen C. Guelzo, Dir...

Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"The Ukrainian nation will emerge from this war more united and certain of its identity than at any other point in its modern history," writes Serhii ...

Philip Clayton Shackelford, "Rise of the Mavericks: The U.S. Air Force Security Service and the Cold War" (US Naval Institute Press, 2023)

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. Air Force had to struggle to establish itself as an independent branch of the American military, and originally was an extension of the Army....

Robin Bartlett, "Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History" (Casemate, 2023)

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Robin Bartlett about his new book Vietnam Combat: Firefights and Writing History (Casemate, 2023). The year 1968 was arguably the...

Mark Galeotti, "Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Galeotti's book Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involv...

Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and suppo...

Tim Clarkson, "A Mighty Fleet and the King's Power: The Isle of Man, AD 400 To 1265" (John Donald, 2023)

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is like a stepping-stone between the lands that surround it. In medieval times, it played an ...

Michael W. Hankins, "Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia" (Cornell UP, 2021)

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Cornell UP, 2021) brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when...

Stéfanie von Hlatky, "Deploying Feminism: The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations" (Oxford UP, 2022)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing launched the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Successive UN Security Council resoluti...

Deborah Bauer, "Marianne Is Watching: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and the Origins of the French Surveillance State" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the French Third Republic sought to rebuild its strength to avenge its defeat and secu...

Scott Carney and Jason Miklian, "The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation" (Ecco Press, 2022)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1970, a storm set a collision course with the most densely populated coastline on Earth. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bh...

Robin Prior, "Conquer We Must: A Military History of Britain, 1914-1945" (Yale UP, 2022)

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of histor...

B. A. Friedman, "On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines" (US Naval Institute Press, 2021)

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Operations: Operational Art and Military Disciplines (US Naval Institute Press, 2021) traces the history of the development of military staffs and...

Beth Bailey, "An Army Afire: How the US Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era" (UNC Press, 2023)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

By the Tet Offensive in early 1968, what had been widely heralded as the best qualified, best-trained army in US history was descending into crisis as...

Benjamin L. Carp, "The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution" (Yale UP, 2023)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

New York City, the strategic center of the Revolutionary War, was the most important place in North America in 1776. That summer, an unruly rebel army...

Tom Hutton, "Hitler's Maladies and Their Impact on World War II" (Texas Tech UP, 2023)

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Toward the end of World War II, Hitler's many health complications became even more pronounced, making an evil man yet more erratic and dangerous. Whi...

George Black, "The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam" (Knopf, 2023)

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny ...

Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman, "Beyond the Pale: The Holocaust in the North Caucasus" (U Rochester Press, 2020)

22 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman's edited volume Beyond the Pale: The Holocaust in the North Caucasus (U Rochester Press, 2020) is the first book...

John Lisle, "The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D...

Cao Yin, "Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942-45" (Oxford UP, 2022)

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the outbreak of the Pacific War, British India had been taken as the main logistic base for China's war against the Japanese. Chinese soldiers, ...

Elena Pedigo Clark, "Trauma and Truth: Teaching Russian Literature on the Chechen Wars" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The collapse of the USSR was relatively bloodless. The Chechen Wars were not. A tiny nation on the edge of Russia, Chechnya brought one of the largest...

Nicholas Guyatt, "The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison" (Basic Books, 2022)

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After the War of 1812, more than five thousand American sailors were marooned in Dartmoor Prison on a barren English plain; the conflict was over but ...